Politico: The President’s Next Chief of Staff Will Probably Be a Person With Political Connections

to figure out just what to expect when President Barack Obama chooses a replacement for his current chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who is supposed to be leaving the White House to run for mayor of Chicago. The verdict:

in the office pool, you’re in trouble. The president is “leaning toward someone already inside the Obama bubble rather than an outsider who would shake up the West Wing.”

(Where would the president even be able to find an outsider qualified to be chief of staff, after having already staffed up his administration with Democrats? In this context, Politico uses “outsider” to include Tom Daschle, who Obama already abortively nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Leon Panetta, the president’s appointee as CIA director.)

But Obama’s aides say that the president has kept his plans close to the vest and that he could opt for an outside-the-box pick should the political climate dictate it.

Obama is wearing a box as a vest, on account of the climate. Is that the most incomprehensible thing Politico has to say about the administration’s future? Of course it isn’t.

Republicans’ gaining control of one of the houses of Congress could even be beneficial to Obama because he’d have the GOP to blame, rather than appear to struggle to get things done with a Democratic Congress.

The function of the country’s chief executive, according to Politico, is not to administer the country as effectively as he can, according to the goals and principles he subscribes to. The job of the president is to avoid the appearance of struggling, even if it means he accomplishes nothing.